Nearly Broken (11 page)

That stunned him into
silence, and for once he took me for something more than a girl
having a crazy, erratic fit. “I killed him,” I whispered
slowly. The shock on his face was horrifying. Finally, he was looking
at me for what I really was. Ugly.

And he needed to
understand just how much he needed to get the hell away from me.
“He’s here for me. Just me. So, please.
Please
save yourself and get as far away from me as possible. Don’t
ever look back. I promise you I’m not worth it.”

I rolled away from
him, lying on the floor on my side, and tucked myself into the fetal
position.
I killed him…

My arms reached
through the smashed glass, gripping the iron bars sturdily, shaking
with all my might though I knew they’d never budge. Smoke
leaked out my newfound hole, escaping into the crisp night air,
mocking me as it left me behind to burn.

“Megan,”
he said with the softest voice I’d ever heard. His hand lightly
touched my shoulder, but I didn’t brush him off this time.
Everything around me seemed fuzzy. My head. My thoughts. The
baseboard I stared at. Nick’s voice.

Ugly…

I killed him…

He’s coming…

His hand retreated but
his voice came so close that the fine hairs within my ear tickled.
“Megan? Tell me what happened. Tell me everything.”

Everything. Would he
leave then? If he knew the truth? My heart was literally aching at
the thought of disappointing him, saying the words that would disgust
and run him off for good. As much as I wanted him, I needed him to
leave. Needed him to realize I was poison. He was too kind for me,
and deserved so much more than I could ever offer. He needed to see
that I couldn’t be fixed, that I could never be what he really
needed.

So I told him…

“My parents were
the only family I had. I wasn’t eighteen yet, and a friend of
theirs had legal rights to care for me until I was. Some rich guy in
the hills. He seemed nice…at first. But there was something
off about him.”

A blurred head
moved above me, in and out of my vision, but I knew it was him.

“I didn’t
like how he’d look at me at night, after having a few drinks.
But I was stuck there. Literally stuck behind window bars and steel
doors with electronic entry pads.

“He claimed he
was a powerful business tycoon, that his life had been threatened,
and that was why we were on temporary lockdown. But no one ever came
or went in that house, not even security. So I didn’t believe
him.

“There were no
phones that I could find, and the computers were all password
protected. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t find a way out of
that place.

“Then came the
night of his proposal.” The word sickened me, caused my stomach
to churn. “He wanted sex in return for more liberties around
the house, but I wasn’t stupid. He’d give me nothing that
wasn’t supervised, so despite the disgust in my head, I
politely turned him down, using a fake boyfriend as my excuse. I went
on to tell him that I could take care of myself, and if he’d
just let me leave, I would. But he used the excuse of how he was
legally bound to care for me, and if I wanted to make some money
before I turned eighteen… He claimed the sex would be platonic
and that it’d be stupid of me financially to pass up that much
money for such a short period of time.

“Again, I said
no and he seemed unaffected. After hiding in my room for a few days,
he came to apologize, saying that if he’d made me
uncomfortable, I was welcome to spend the rest of my time in the
private guest quarters on the bottom floor, since it was set up like
a mini apartment. I was actually stupid enough to check it out when I
thought he was showering.

“I tell myself
that he would’ve found a way to get me down there anyway, that
he could’ve easily overpowered me at any moment.”

Stupid girl.
Stupid, stupid,
stupid!

“I didn’t
think twice about it because it didn’t have an electronic lock
on it. And once I got down the basement stairs and realized it was
nothing more than a king size bed and a bathroom, it was too late.
That’s when I realized the lock was on the outside, not the
inside. He’d already locked me in and I just didn’t have
the body weight to knock the door down.

“I was afraid to
sleep and had nothing to eat, so when he finally came down for me, I
was too weak to fight him off. Not that I didn’t try… He
finally got pissed off at my screaming and scratching and just hit me
until he knocked me out.”

I closed my eyes,
disgusted, horrified of what came next. But the images burned on the
inside of my eyelids were even worse.

“When I woke up,
I was sore and bruised. And I could
feel
everything he did to
me.” …
Could feel how rough he’d been with my
body, particularly inside me. And the bruises… I was always
bruised inside and out.
“He took my clothes, so I was
forced to be naked for him.

“My time there’s
a blur because he kept me drugged after that.”
A blessing in
the deepest level of hell.
“I couldn’t figure out how
he was doing it. The water? The food? Even if I skipped them, I still
woke up the next morning knowing I’d been raped again.”
He’d been so rough. Every time. Like I was nothing more than
a tissue meant to be discarded via paper shredder.
I never had
time to heal.

But thank God I was
never really conscious for it all… I couldn’t even
imagine the trauma my body and soul would’ve suffered had I
been.

As numb as my body
was, the tears continued to well behind my eyes. And as I forced
myself to relive that horrible nightmare, they just kept coming and
coming.

“I wanted to
die. No one was looking for me. No one even knew I was missing. Every
morning I died a little bit more and I just wanted it to end. So I
stopped eating. Once I flushed three meals, he realized what I was
doing. He held a knife to me and said there were worse things he
could do than drug and rape me, and that he’d do it that very
night if I didn’t start eating again.

“I felt so
hopeless. I couldn’t even die!”

I took a moment to
calm my breathing, which was difficult now that I was choking on the
thick fluids sliding from my nose down my throat. Nick was so quiet,
and at some point, he had removed his hand from my shoulder. But I
knew he was still there. He was so close I could feel his body heat
on my backside, and it gave me the strength to continue.

“I didn’t
know what to do. He had all the control. I was at his mercy, and he
never gave any. And the drugs… He kept me so doped up it took
me forever to put it together. It wasn’t in the water or the
food. It was the vent. He laced the air whenever he wanted to come
down, or to keep me quiet when people came over. And they did. The
bastard hung a baby monitor in my room so I could hear how close
these strangers were to discovering me. And rescuing me. He even
forced me to listen to him screw the women who gave it up willingly.”
The only good thing about those nights was that he wouldn’t
come down to take it from me.

But then there was the
one friend who
did
know about me. The one that got visiting
rights to my prison. My captor knew I’d be listening in fear
for
his
voice, knowing that he’d make his way down to me
eventually. The things
he
did hurt me the most and left faint
scars on my skin. But I didn’t tell Nick about the horrors of
that man. No, this story was about the man that locked me in that
dungeon to begin with.

“When I finally
figured out the vent, I began trying to get it off. It took four
days.”
And four more rapes.
“I had to move the bed
and jump up and down while trying to loosen the screws. I was so
exhausted and weak because he only fed me once a day. And the drug
was always coming out in some dosage. He only upped it when he needed
me knocked out and only turned it off once I was too drugged to fight
him off.

“Finally, I got
the cover off and stuffed the vent with the fitted sheet. Then I
waited for him to come back down. I laid under the covers and hid the
vent cover under the pillow. And when he got close enough, I bashed
his head in with it.”
He reeked of liquor, just like he
always did when he used me. The stench was usually strong enough to
waft up my nose and snap my mind free of the drug’s trance
momentarily, like a shot of adrenaline, but still rendered my body
useless, forcing me to
know
what he was doing against my will.

“I ran out of
the basement but I only succeeded in replacing one prison for
another. There were still iron bars and steel doors. I was desperate,
and thought the only way I was going to get out was if the people
monitoring the security system disarmed it. So I set the fire.”

I looked to my
horribly damaged arms. My sleeves had been pushed up this whole time
and I didn’t even notice.

“But the damn
curtains weren’t burning very well. So I grabbed some wine
bottles from the kitchen. The first I threw did nothing but hit the
ground rolling and settle beneath the fire. So I smashed off the top
of the next one and slung it at the fire and along the walls so it’d
travel faster. I did it over and over again, but I guess one of the
bottles weren’t wine. The moment I slung the liquid, I swear it
caught fire midair and flashed back at me like the hand of God.”

Tears really began
pushing their way out then, burning and stinging my raw eyes and
sensitive skin just beneath them. “I think I angered God or
something for what I did, because all I know is there was a loud boom
and I was thrown backwards. Whatever was in that bottle splashed
against my skin during the boom, and most of those spots were on
fire. The arm holding the bottle got it the worst. I consider myself
damn lucky that it didn’t get my hands or face, but it got my
arms, my chest and my abdomen. And all I could do was roll myself
over the rug and beat myself with an afghan to put it out.” I
still shuddered over the pain.

“It took forever
for the doors to unlock, and by then I was in so much pain I just
wanted to lay there and die. The firemen grabbed me and had me sent
to the hospital, but I snuck out before the police could question
me.”

Squeezing myself
harder, I whined, “I didn’t want to go to jail. I was
glad that asshole was dead, okay? But it was still my fault. I set
the fire that killed him. And when the fireman asked me if anyone
else was in the house, I said no. Because I wanted him dead!”
And I didn’t care. I’d do it all over again, except
next time, I’d burn that other fucker, too.

They changed me.
Now I was ugly…both inside and out.

“But all the
police had to do was check with his lawyer to know I was the one
staying in that house. They’ll know it was me.” My
breaths deepened, my insides so queasy I wanted to throw up. I
swallowed, hard. “Sometimes I think I should’ve just let
the fire take me, too.”

“No. No!”
Nick finally said. Arms pulled at me, as I still lied on the floor in
a tight fetal position, trying desperately to protect myself from an
enemy I thought long gone. He gathered me up, and my vision spun a
few circles, but calmed when his hands squeezed both sides of my
face. His eyes were red and puffy, and streams of tears marked his
paler-than-normal cheeks. I never even heard him cry.

Firmly, he said, “You
listen to me. No one’s coming for you, because you did nothing
wrong. That man… He…” His eyes closed, finding it
hard to continue. “That fucking bastard was killing you little
by little every day. Fire was too merciful for his sins. What you did
was self-defense, and even if the police did find you one day, I
promise you they’ll never charge you with anything. You did the
world a fucking favor getting rid of that piece of shit. And don’t
you
ever
fucking call yourself ugly again. Don’t you
ever
feel guilty for what you had to do to escape.”

I couldn’t
answer him, my jaw quivering too hard within his grasp, the tears
pouring harder than ever. “But there’s still the other
guy,” I whispered.

“What guy?”

The one who loved to
cut me. “There was a friend that knew about me. With only one
body recovered from the fire, I knew it was just a matter of time
before he caught up to me. He’ll never let me get away with
it.” Agitation growing within, my voice began to panic. “And
I saw him tonight! Outside the diner. He found me and I won’t
stay here to be taken again!”

“You listen to
me. No one is coming for you. You’re just seeing things. I was
right behind you and nobody was hanging around the diner. If that man
had any way of tracking you, he would’ve found you a long time
ago.”

I didn’t believe
him. He was still out there, and as long as he was, no part of me
would ever believe otherwise. I shook my head, my body shaking so
violently I was unable to offer anything more.

“Damn it,
Megan.” He released my face and stumbled to his feet. Once
grounded, he swooped me up and carried me to bed. Practically
swaddling our bodies in the blanket, he forced my body to lean into
his. “You’re safe now. No one’s
ever
going
to hurt you anymore.”

Safe
. That was
a word that hadn’t been in my vocabulary for quite some time,
and I still didn’t believe in it. But locked within Nick’s
firm grasp, I could almost actually believe it. Mentally and
physically exhausted, I willingly succumbed, and he held me in the
world’s tightest embrace even long after I cried myself to
sleep.